Becoming sheathed in the vanishing colors of
The yard;
I would have liked to say that her favorite color was
Red, like an ixora:
Maybe she bordered the walk into high school:
Maybe she was just one of many I couldn’t stop to smell,
But now crepuscule is entering the yard:
The rattlesnakes curl into balls: It is almost time for their
Young to hatch underneath the hamper where
The whelps are being birthed:
They come out so faithfully to the side of the carport
Where the toads are ululating in a fevered pitch:
And there is the washer and dryer all warm to the side;
It is almost like the grotto of a virgin,
And the little back yard where the pet rabbits are kept,
And the orange tree weeps; and over the chicken wire fence
The entire sky laments as it is turned away;
And I wonder too if you wonder what that must be like,
In your other little yard not so far away.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem